How much is your CEO paid?

The CEO is paid €120,000. There are no benefits (e.g. no company car) other than a pension contribution (which is available to all full-time employees) and no bonus is paid.

The CEO reports to our Board of volunteer trustees on the strategic leadership of the organisation on the island of Ireland and the delivery of high-quality emergency response and long-term development programmes overseas.

As part of his role Jim Clarken is also a member of the Board of Oxfam International, which means sharing strategic responsibility for the entire Oxfam global network in more than 90 countries.

The CEO’s salary is set by the remuneration and performance committee which made up of three members of the board, known as the Council. All of our board members are volunteers.

Do you pay top-ups or bonuses? Do you give staff perks?

We don’t give ‘top-ups’ of any kind to staff. Our staff members receive a basic salary, without any perks or bonuses. All permanent staff have the opportunity to join a defined contribution scheme.

Why do you pay staff? Why isn’t Oxfam Ireland run entirely by volunteers?

Oxfam benefits greatly from volunteer support – more than 2,000 people across the island generously give their time to help our work. Every paid staff member is complemented by around 10 volunteers who work in our shops, offices and at events – even our Board is comprised of volunteers.

Given the large scale of our programmes overseas and also our operations at home such as our shops, we have a relatively small team of full and part-time staff who ensure that we work in the most effective and efficient way, and also ensure that the money donated to Oxfam is spent wisely. The people employed by Oxfam are those who are best qualified and experienced to do the job. We strive to be professional and operate to the highest standard to make sure we have a positive impact on the lives of the people we serve.

Do you pay your board members?

All our board members are volunteers. Board members come from the private, public and voluntary sectors in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland and bring a wide range of experience, skills and knowledge. We are one of a very small number of charities to publically advertise for board members. Information about each board member is available here.

Funds raised in shops

Our local shops are a vital source of funding for our work around the globe. We made a retail net profit for the current year (April 2016 to March 2017) of €1.04m, which is almost double the previous year. This figure excludes the generous cash donations made in store by our supporters, i.e. through emergency appeals and our Unwrapped alternative gift range. For example, in 2016/17 approximately €200,000 in cash donations was raised by our shops in addition to the funds raised from the sale of clothes and other items.

Christmas cards

We sell the cards in our shops directly and do not use third parties sales agents. This means that 70% of the price goes towards our work (a much higher percentage than many other charity cards) and 30% covers the inevitable costs of printing and distribution.

Other commonly asked questions about our work

Do you receive government funding?

In the last financial year, we received €4.23million in funding from Irish Aid, the official aid programme of the Irish Government, for humanitarian assistance in countries like Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan and for long-term development programmes in countries such as Malawi and Tanzania.

How do I know my donation isn’t going to corrupt governments?

We don’t fund governments. Your donations go to our own Oxfam programmes, or the programmes of carefully selected and monitored local partner organisations. We have extremely tight financial procedures in place and apply these same high standards to all our partners. Along with regularly auditing partners, if required we also help them to strengthen their own financial reporting procedures.

Why are the governments in the countries where you provide essential services like water, health and education not doing this work themselves?

We provide essential services such as water, sanitation, health and education in the following circumstances:

1. In emergency situations such as natural disasters when local infrastructure has been damaged/destroyed

2. When the services provided by governments are inadequate, i.e. of poor quality and not reaching the most vulnerable in the society such as poor women and girls, people affected by HIV, people with disabilities, etc.

We don’t just simply provide the services in these situations – we build the necessary infrastructure and train local people to use it, along with showing governments and state bodies best practice in the provision of essential services.

We believe that states have a responsibility to provide these services and citizens have a right to receive them. That’s why a lot of our work focuses on supporting communities to stand up for their rights and demand these services from their governments.

How do you know if your programmes are actually effective?

All our programmes are continually monitored and evaluated to determine their impact and effectiveness. We do this through financial and project reporting, including regular monitoring visits, partner audits and formal independent evaluations.

We give particular emphasis to feedback from community members when assessing the success of our work. All our programmes are designed to improve their capacity to meet their own needs so that the benefits of the project continue long after we leave.

What about helping people in Ireland, i.e. charity begins at home?

‘Charity begins at home, but does not end there’ is the full version of the quote from Thomas Fuller (1608-1661). Supported by people across the island of Ireland for more than 50 years, Oxfam offers the Irish public a way to support our work with the world’s poorest people. For instance, our shops play a key role in connecting communities here with others overseas. They’re a place where local people can donate the things they no longer need in an eco-friendly way, buy clothes and other items at reduced prices and learn new skills through volunteering. In February 2014, following severe and unprecedented flooding, we donated a week’s proceeds from shops in six affected counties to local flood reliefs.

We are an independent and secular organisation not connected to any religion and carry out of work free from any party-political agenda. Our guiding principles are based on advancing human rights and we provide help and support to people of all beliefs and none.

Why can’t I donate clothes or other physical items to your emergency appeal?

The most effective way to help our work with clothes and other physical items is to bring them to your local Oxfam shop or donation bank. The proceeds of our shops fund our three areas of work: emergency responses, long-term development programmes and campaigning/advocacy.

We source any required emergency items from the affected regions themselves in so far as possible, because this is the most cost effective, time efficient and energy saving way of bring the right aid fast and effectively.

Shipping or flying a random and unsolicited selection of items from Ireland, however well intended, can be unnecessarily expensive, and may result in the transport of items that are unsuitable to the local context and thus never used. It can even result in the duplication or oversupply of certain items and undermine the local price of goods and livelihoods of the very producers and retailers whose livelihoods we strive so hard to support after an emergency, causing even greater injustice and vulnerability. We call this the 'Do No Harm' approach.

The best way we can help is to turn people’s goods into cash through our shops and use that money to help people fast.